


Reunion Lost

by Techpriestess



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: F/M, Forced Abortion, Heavy Angst, Warp Fuckery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:11:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Techpriestess/pseuds/Techpriestess
Summary: Lord Inquisitor Gabriel Radcliffe has been forced to do the unthinkable- work with an Agent of Chaos to save the Imperium. Chaos Sorceror Dremora always has an ulterior motive, and now the Lord Inquisitor's wife, Magos Rebeckah Radcliffe, is on the run, convinced that her husband has fallen to Chaos. The Lord Inquisitor has been hunting her down, his own information indicating that the Chemyst has betrayed him for Dark masters.





	1. Catching Up

His rapid footfalls echoed far down the corridor, melting into the cacophony of hissing pipes and clicking machinery. Dim lumen strips cast long shadows cut in odd places by sporadic warning panels. A juncture lay up ahead. ‘ _She cannot be far now…_ ’

The Inquisitor adjusted his grip on his polearm as he rounded the corner, his thoughts almost lost in the bitter longing he felt for his missing wife. The click of a primed bolter snapped his attention forward to the figure standing at the opposite end of the hall. He stopped short, his breath catching in his chest. “Rebeckah…”

She stood still, leaning heavily on her Omnissian power axe, draped in dark robes. A bolter was pointed square at his chest. “No tricks, daemon. I won’t be fooled.” Her voice was pained, low and gravely.

“Amoira, what’re you talking about?” Radcliffe took a step forward, reaching for her. Her lips tightened into a grimace. “Put that down and let’s talk…” He took another step and the muzzle flashed. A bolt skipped off his kinetic barrier and burst a pipe behind him, filling the hall with a rush of smoke. Several more bolts flashed around him as he charged her. She discarded the weapon and raised her poweraxe to meet him.

They exchanged blows, Radcliffe pressing her defense. ‘ _This could not be her… Bec would never shoot me…’_ The thought pained him; a daemon either wore her skin or had taken her shape, but this could not be her. Rebeckah moved slowly, only putting forth just enough effort to deflect his assault. No mechadendrites writhed around her, providing none of their usual additional challenge. It took him minimal effort to find an opening. A kinetically enhanced kick sent her tumbling. She was lighter than he knew her to be; the blow sent her much farther than it should have. ‘ _It’s not her…_ ’

She curled up, cradling her belly with one arm. He used the end of his polearm to force her to look at him. Without the shadow of her hood, her face was drawn and defeated. “Any last words?” Radcliffe growled.

“… If Gabriel is still alive somewhere in there, tell him I tried to protect our son…”

Radcliffe balked. “… What?” His eyes glowed blue and he pressed into her mind. Anguish, fear, and nausea flooded around him. She didn’t bother to put up much of a fight- systems were shutting down as she was giving up. Warnings in her dataspheres were being extinguished one by one. Memories flashed around him of the pict recordings of him and Dremora, manipulated to look as if they were friends. Reports of activity that could only be him covered her dataslates, informing of how the ruinous powers had tainted him. She had figured out she was pregnant, just in time to start running. The grief was overwhelming. But he found no taint in her. No ruinous power controlled her. He withdrew of her mind, his ghost-sight revealing the truth hiding in her belly.

“Rebeckah, Amoira… It’s really you? You’re really…” He dropped his weapon, tears rolling down his face from their mingling pain, and crouched down beside her.

She recoiled, confused. “… Gabriel?”

A black streak dropped from the ceiling, laying flat the Inquisitor.

“Silvanus!” Rebeckah gasped. [Explain your delay.] She demanded.

[Magos.] He acknowledged her with a blank expression. He held a null rod to the back of Radcliffe’s neck in addition to pinning him down. [‘Request permission: Extermination order #35562.]

She looked to her husband, who struggled with the weight of Silvanus on top of him. [Request denied. Complete examination: custom order #62241 before permission reevaluated.]

“Rebeckah…?” Radcliffe grunted, lost to the conversation.

“… I’m sorry for this…” she looked away as Silvanus pulled a talisman from his robes. Radcliffe’s brows furrowed and he looked as if he were going to ask what she meant, but Silvanus touched the cool stone to his forehead and light exploded between his temples. A scream tore from his lungs as ice flooded his body.

[Enough. Diagnosis?] Rebeckah directed.

[… Diagnosis: Untainted.] Silvanus was reluctant to remove the stone from his face, but he stowed it away as a threat of static curled with Rebeckah’s grimace.

[Release him.] He made a noise of disapproval, but removed the null rod and got off the Inquisitor.

“What was that?” Radcliffe rasped, struggling to sit up.

“A Saint’s relic.” She watched Silvanus collect her bolter and power axe.

“Where did you get it?”

“… I can’t tell you that.” She finally looked back at him. Silvanus crouched beside her, checking for wounds.

Radcliffe pursed his lips. “… And you are with child…”

“For the moment.” She looked away again, recoiling from Silvanus’ touch as his mechadendrites pressed into her side.

“Did I wound you?”

“Yes.” Her voice was quiet.

Radcliffe breathed slowly and leaned forward to touch her hand. “Amoura… I’m so sorry…” Her synth skin was cool and clammy.

[Magos, we must go.] Silvanus chirped. Her gaze fell to the floor.

[Parameters have changed. Reevaluate.] She laced her fingers with Radcliffe’s.

[Negative. Insufficient time. Available time after arrival on Baransk Cosk.]

[Command prompt: Reevaluate.]

Radcliffe glanced briefly between the two. “… The Rampant waits close by. Come home with me.”

[Insufficient data to calculate the safety of the Rampant.] Rebeckah grimaced. [Rendevous departure: 5:47 minutes. We must go.]

“Recall the squad, Silvanus. I want to go home.” She murmured, watching her hand in Radcliffe’s. Silvanus held still for a moment, his cold gaze on the Inquisitor.

[I disagree with this action, but as you wish, Magos.] He paused, studying Radcliffe. “There is a loose bulkhead to the left at the end of the hallway that leads to the ventilation system. Take her there and wait for my return. Can you handle that, Lord Inquisitor?”

Radcliffe ignored the insult. “We will wait for you there.”

Silvanus touched his forehead to Rebeckah’s, humming for a moment, and then disappeared as quickly as he had come. Radcliffe felt a flare of jealousy in his chest.

“… Would you help me up?” Rebeckah asked quietly. He rose and guided her to her feet, then collected her halberd. “Thank you…”

“Always, Amoura.”


	2. Destruction of the Rampant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovering Rebeckah had been a blessing, but his relief is short-lived. A Lord Inquisitor's work is not done, even with a wife heavy with his child. So he left her in the care of his crew, in the safety of his ship, the Rampant. Again, Dremora's plans unfold, and Radcliffe is pushed to seek the help of a Heretek to save Rebeckah.

He set his teeth as the team made their way through the Rampant. He had left her on the ship- it was supposed to be safe. And now the lumen strips overhead sputtered and symbols that writhed as their gazes passed over them covered the walls. The smell of copper and ozone permeated the narrow passages, penetrating their rebreathers. Blood pooled around his slain crewmen. Somewhere in this nightmare, she was here.

Some hours of slogging through the wreckage brought them team to the door of his personal quarters. The guttering light of her soul lay just beyond. Past doors they had to pry open was as if bison has rampaged through. Furniture was overturned and broken. More obscene symbols defaced the walls and floor. A piece of the bulkhead lay across the bed they had once shared. A seven pointed star had been carved into it, and across the center was her.

Her mouth hung open, her eyes blank and unilluminated. Mechadendrites, no longer attached to the mounts in her back, were slung about the points of the star. Strips of metal torn from the walls had been pounded through her wrists and ankle. Synth skin around the stud in her hands had blackened and still faintly smoked. Her near-black hemolubricant smeared her porcelain skin which was bare for all to see. Her belly, once swollen with their growing child, was carved open like a garish smile, her insides a mishmash of shatter hardware and pulped organs.

Radcliffe wavered as he stared at his wife, leaning against the doorframe. “Rebeckah…” He moaned. A Vornian moved forward to cover her with one of the blankets left torn in a heap on the floor. Her fingers flexed, startling the infantryman. The synth skin cracked and peeled.

Racliffe’s eyes went wide, and in a moment he was by her side, cradling her face in his gloved hands. ‘Amoura…’ He caressed her mind, delicate. Within the confines of her skull, cracked as it was, she screamed. They had destroyed her vocal chords. Her soul flickered in the presence of his.

“We need to get a medical team with a Mechanicus consult up here, now.” He heard Kara direct behind him. The medic in the unit moved to her other side and began his work stemming the leaking fluids and removing her from the bulkhead panel.

* * *

Victoria wiped her hands and mechadendrites with a stained rag. An incense burning servoskull circled above her head, nearly brushing the ceiling. A thick smog puffed from it, emitting an earthy smell not unlike what had come to associate with Rebeckah’s research laboratories.

“She will live!” She chirped, obviously very proud of herself. Mitlan raised an eyebrow at the priestess. He remained at his position, arms crssed and boots up on the workbench that sat in the middle of the room. Radcliffe simply stared at her, stopped amid his pacing. “The modifications we had made previously kept 92.4% of the malatek programming out of her software and cogitators. It appears she did make use of the pariah cognator we made for her before it was torn out. Whole thing! All gone.” She giggled and looked up at her servoskull to chirp at it. It chirped back and whirled around her head. Vicca’s gaze wandered around the room, lost in her own thoughts.

“Vicca.” Mitlan warned.

“Oh! Oh. Right. Uhm. Well. She’s recovering now. We will need to replace many of her components. Most of them, really. And I do not have her style of hardware- oh I will have to pick her brain for the method of creation-“ Mitlan got to his feet, drawing her attention. “Oh, oh. She’ll live, but she will not look the same.”

“What of her mind?” Radcliffe rasped.

She giggled and shrugged. “I have no idea! Her programming is mostly in its proper place. She might be crazy. She might not.”

The Inquisitor set his jaw. “And my child? Could they have taken my child alive?”

Vicca’s expression flickered for a moment before her grin returned. “With Chaos, anything is possible!”

“How likely is it?” Mitlan’s voice was low, narrow eyes fixed on her.

“Uhm… Unlikely. There was a significant amount of material left in her abdomen. At most, they took parts for later ritual.” Vicca nodded and tipped her head to one side.

Radcliffe turned away and ran a trembling hand over his face. It was a cold comfort, knowing they did not succeed in taking their son. “When can I see her?”

Vicca hummed, glancing back at the doors she had come through. “My adepts are running diagnostics. She is heavily sedated. It takes quite a load of chemicals to overcome her blood scrubbers! Even after replacing all her hemolubricant-“

“Vicca.” The assassin barked.

“Oh! Oh. Uhm…  She will be conscious enough to communicate in 3.4 hours. She may not be coherent, even if she is totally sane.”

Radcliffe grimaced and set his hands on his hips, his gaze on his feet. “I want to be with her until then.”

Vicca’s grin grew. “Oh yes. That will be fine. My adepts will work around you.”

* * *

Past the veils, plastic barriers, and incense burners, she lay in a mesh litter that allowed her newly repaired mechadendrites to dangle freely below her. Some parts were wrapped in black stained gauze, and others were covered in plastic sheets. Synth skin had been peeled away to reveal just how much she had given over to the Machine God. Her long black hair was gone, along with the skin below, and her skull was wired into the machines around her.

Adepts surrounded her, each checking machines, comparing dataslates, or administering new concoctions to her IVs. A low hum underlined the room, their constant chatter mingling with the whir of the cogitators monitoring her. Radcliffe studied her with mouth slightly agape. His breath caught in his throat as his gaze passed over broken cognators and split tubes that hung in the place of what he had once known as skin and limbs. The gaping hole where their child had once grown was still open, a weeping slice that mourned with them. Clear plastic cover her belly, tacked to the edges of her wounds. He approached her; the adepts parted to let him through. No part of her seemed safe to touch. His mind brushed hers briefly, as much to let her know he was there as to confirm to himself that she was in this body of metal and flesh, and that she was truly alive. He sat down in a chair an adept silently offered, and cradled his head in his hands.

* * *

The light in her eyes brightened as a sunrise, so slow as to be neigh inperceptable. Her head began to move along with unfocused eyes. Her lips twitched from time to time, but no words came.

Radcliffe moved closer as she stirred, gently brushing his mind against hers. It pained him to see all her barriers gone. Her mind was clouded fragments between tumbling streams of data, and those seemed disjointed to even the uninitiated Inquisitor. “Rebeckah…” He whispered, brushing her cheek.

Her gaze fell on him. Gears ground slowly, struggling to focus on his strained face. He smiled at her. Rebeckah’s brows furrowed and her lips struggled to form words, but only a rasping whine came. Augmented vocal chords had yet to be replaced. She pulled at her arms, which had been clamped down while they were being repaired. Gears cried in their effort to move. Her increasingly agitated shifting soon had the Adepts scrambling to get her to stop. Static filled the room.

‘ _Rebeckah, amoura… Be still, it’s okay._ ’ Radcliffe insisted in her mind. His thumb rubbed the smooth synth skin of her face. ‘ _You’re okay._ ’

The words she could not speak raced through her mind in a whirlwind of static and distress. ‘ _They took- they took- no no no no Omnissiah no- I can’t-_ ‘ Her mind began to push him out, the barriers returning.

‘ _Amoura, please…_ ’ His heart was breaking again. ‘ _It’s me, please be calm, I’m here…_ ’ Radcliffe pleaded.

Her eyes kept slipping in and out of focus as they darted around the room. ‘ _Gone gone gone. 28.2 hours, no response. Decibal levels in dangerous numbers. Gone. Where is he? Taken. Taken. Killed. Murdered. Homicide. Infanticide. Taken._ Gabriel.’ Her gaze fell on him again. ‘ _Amoira…_ ’ A smile pulled at the edges of her lips. ‘ _I needed you- I needed you. Where are you? Where is my husband?_ ’

Radcliffe choked, and his other hand cupped her face. ‘ _Rebeckah, my love, my life, I’m so, so sorry… “I’m here, I’m here now. Please…_ ’ Tears tumbled down his face anew. ‘ _Amoura… Be still, you’re going to be okay._ ’

Her head shuddered and the light in her eyes flickered. She made a noise of disbelief but her blood scrubbers were doing well to clear the haze of her mind. ‘ _Gabriel… I tried… I really tried… Everything, anything… I couldn’t… I can’t… I needed you. Dead. Dead. They’re all… The_ Rampant _cries… Blood, symbols…_ ’

He leaned forward, touching his forehead to hers. ‘ _I know, I know. I came as soon as I could. I’m here now… We’re taking care of the_ Rampant. _Please, Rebeckah._ ’

The broken priestess stopped, her whining cognators powering down. ‘ _The ship cries… The crew is dead… Our son is dead… Am I dead? I want to be dead._ ’

‘ _No, my love. I need you now. You are alive. You are being made whole._ ’ Radcliffe murmured. ‘ _Rebeckah, I’m sorry… Forgive me…_ ’

Her shoulders sagged as she once did when she sighed. In her mind, she reached up to cup his face. ‘ _Amoira, I need you. I need you with me. Never leave._ ’

His chest tightened- his work had taken him away again and again, and would always be that way. Inquisitors never retire. A part of him prayed that this request was only a part of her broken sanity; it was not something he could promise her. ‘ _I am with you, Rebeckah. I am always yours._ ’

His answer seemed to pacify her enough, though she seemed to deflate further. His mind caressed hers. ‘ _I am yours._ ’ Was all she could muster. He kissed her gently and carefully retreated from her mind.

“I love you, Amoura…” He whispered.


End file.
